Almost Human
by Futago no Seishi
Summary: Marth has a secret: a dark, horrible, soul-deterioratingly awful secret that he can only share with a single person in the entire world. On dealing with obsession, loss, and questionable coping. AU, yaoi, IkeMarth, one-shot, darkfic.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Super Smash Brothers: Brawl or any of the characters, and this piece of fanfiction is for the sole purpose of entertainment.

**Pairing:** IkeMarth  
**Genre: **dark (horror-ish?), angst  
**Rating: **R  
**Words: **1755  
**Warnings: **homosexuality, character death

**A/N: **This is creepy. I won't lie; I was slightly creeped out myself when I got the idea (and then bizarrely went through with writing it). Story is also told chronologically out of order. Those numbers indicate when each scene actually takes place in the timeline sequence.

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**Almost Human**

_ten._

Marth has a secret.

Not just any secret, though—something dark and horrible and soul-deterioratingly awful, with which he can share with only a single person in the entire world.

Ike.

He loves Ike with all his heart and he knows that Ike accepts him for all he is: flaws and darkness and self-pity and all the things that fall outside of the Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice category. But that's just the kind of person that Ike is: compassionate, wholesome, _human_. So human that Marth hopes he can regain some of his own humanity via association.

o

_one._

Marth comes upon the other by pure happenstance.

He's stopped right next to Marth at the crosswalk of Pine St. and Grand Ave. at 7:35 AM. Marth is heading towards campus for his first lecture of the day on the first day of Fall classes; and considering that the young man walks quietly, groggily, besides him into the entrance of the campus, he assumes that the other is likewise heading off for a similar start to the day.

He expects the student to veer off-course at some time during their morning commute. Maybe a detour through the quad to the humanities college or to the winding path toward the northern-located school of political science. The young man doesn't strike him as a science student—not with his backpack studded with cause buttons like "No to Prop 15" and "LBGT Ally" and his flip-flop-adorned feet. But much to Marth's surprise, the half-asleep student continues in his slumped fashion besides him all the way to the Health Sciences complex.

When the young man notices him and holds the classroom door open politely, Marth's suspicions that the tall student is part of his 8 AM human physiology lecture are confirmed.

Normally, Marth spends the first class of the semester going over the syllabus and evaluating the assembled students to gauge class dynamics. However, this time around, he finds himself unable to survey the dozens of students seated in front of him; instead, he finds himself transfixed on the sleepy young man who seems out of place in the first row in what is obviously a pre-med course.

When the eternally flip-flop-wearing student knocks on his door during his fourth office hours of the year, he learns that the boy's name is Ike.

o

_four._

Marth thinks he will simply faint from his sudden tachycardia, but surprisingly, he remains conscious as he sits on his couch with Ike's hands on his cheeks and his lips on his mouth.

Ike kisses him gently, unhurriedly, with the lightest brushes of his lips against Marth's stunned and immobile ones. The unruly strands of Ike's hair tickle his cheekbone, and reflexively he reaches up to wind his fingers through those locks. He has always wondered whether they would be coarse to the touch, but they are surprisingly sleek beneath his fingers, lighting his nerves on fire.

When his shock subsides, Marth finds his body wound tight with arousal for the young man across from him. The sudden need to feel Ike, all of him, from any moles on his back to any hairs on his chest to any judgment he may pass, overwhelms all sense of his normally iron-clad propriety—and before either of them can expect it, he is scrambling onto the other's lap, a desperate moan escaping from his throat as he clutches to broad shoulders and kisses Ike with a delirious fervor that surprises them both.

o

_two._

Marth is young for his position, he knows; he only just finished his post-doc two years ago and received the assistant professor offer last year. He is fairly new to the university and teaching in general, but he is nothing else if not dedicated to his endeavors. He credits his determination and diligence more than anything for getting him where he is by twenty-eight.

He applies the same enthusiasm and perseverance to getting closer to Ike, despite all logical reasoning dictating otherwise. He doesn't understand why, but the young man, with his wide smile and brash laugh and penchant for puns, instills something almost possessive in him. He wants Ike and all that he stands for; he wants Ike to smile at him with those sincere eyes and hold his hand and tell him that there's more to life than academic pursuits and running from the darkness.

o

_eight._

Marth is sitting in his office during lunch, reading the school newspaper when he sees the small posting notifying all that Ike has gone missing.

Ike has been reported missing by his roommates as of yesterday. Police are hopeful to find the young man as less than 48 hours have passed since his disappearance. Any persons with potential knowledge or sightings of the 20-year-old student are urged to contact the police department as soon as possible.

He stares down at the small article, at the grainy but still breathtakingly handsome photo of Ike's smiling face, and bends over his ham sandwich and cries.

o

_five._

Marth can't believe the emotional pain he feels when Ike turns his face away from his kiss before breaking up with him. It's like he suddenly finds himself supine on an autopsy table, scalpel running from suprasternal notch all the way down to umbillicus on his not-yet-cadaverous body.

Five months have passed since their first date that chilly November evening. Spring is in full bloom that balmy afternoon, and Marth finds it hard to believe that their relationship is coming so casually to an end. He tries to protest, to ask Ike what he's done wrong—obviously the fault lies with him, because Ike is as near-perfect as a human being can possibly be whereas he is a pitiful excuse for a _Homo sapiens_ who doesn't deserve the happiness Ike brought him but is greedy enough to need it.

Ike is ready to leave, but Marth begs him for explanation, breaks down in a hyperventilating panic. Ike's eyes soften as he walks around his office desk to wrap an arm around Marth's trembling body, promising he'll come to his apartment that night so they can talk it over in private.

o

_seven._

Marth's chest is seized up in panic and horror when he finally comes to his senses—and his senses are absolutely overloaded. Everything is too hot to the touch, so much that the sweat beading down his forehead feels like it's boiling the skin in its wake. His hands are shaking and he's flicking fluid all over the carpet. The musky, thick smell in the air is too much for his lungs; too powerful a scent, and he's both gagging and choking for fresh air as he falls to his knees, staring in disbelief around him. It feels like his very world is crumbling apart, the ground giving way beneath his legs like so much gravel in a sinkhole, and he wishes so very badly that Ike were here.

That Ike could hold onto him and be his anchor to this painful world, because Ike is his everything and he is nothing and insignificant and unworthy and detestable without the younger man.

o

_three._

Marth fidgets in place with both anxiety and excitement when Ike accepts his dinner invitation because it's forbidden by the university code of conduct for professors to date students. But Marth has never felt romantically attracted to anyone else in all his years, and never did he anticipate it to be so intense—so much more intense than even the excitement he feels when reading the latest research in cellular biology.

Ike is sitting across from his desk in his office, sweatshirt haphazardly draped over his broad shoulders, and all that Marth wants to do is reach over and pull the garment down, to feel the muscles in those arms beneath his trembling fingers. But instead, he awkwardly shuffles the stack of graded tests on his desk, realigning them until all the pages are perfectly in place while staring at a most interesting water spot on his desk. Ike's laughter washes over him like how he imagines the warmth of the Caribbean sun on his skin would feel, and any nervousness he holds within his chest dissipates with the sound.

Because Marth is much less assertive than Ike, it is the student who leans across the two feet separating them to remove his hands from their clutch on the papers, instead enveloping them in his own. Marth feels light-headed as Ike smiles across from him and sincerely says that he likes him a lot, but has never dated another man before.

Marth shyly confesses that he's never dated anyone, period, and Ike makes a joke about them testing out uncharted territory together, but watch out for the snakes.

o

_nine._

Marth knows he is sick, a sickness deep in his soul that modern medicine and pharmacology and spirituality can't possibly think to cure. His is a sickness of the being, a curse from the depths of some hell-dwelling world where creatures like him belong.

He hates himself, hates himself so much and has to wonder how Ike ever loved and accepted him in the first place. Because Ike could see beneath the carefully constructed façade he erects around himself, the veneer of self-restraint and education and reserve that he paints over the sorry lump of meat he calls home. But Ike has stayed with him—he didn't leave Marth, after all. So Ike must accept Marth for all his faults and iniquity, and maybe, just maybe, that makes his wretched existence just a bit more bearable.

The smell of formaldehyde overwhelms his gag reflex and he retches over the bathtub.

o

_six._

Ike.

Ike, please.

Don't leave me, Ike.

Please, please don't leave me. Ike!

Don't leave me don't leave me don't leave me please no, oh God no, please!

Ike! Ike, no!

"Don't leave me, Ike!"

Oh please oh please ohpleasepleaseplease.

Ike.

o

_eleven._

Ike doesn't smile at him from across the bed nor does he open his eyes. In fact, he lies still as if asleep, but his chest doesn't rise and breath doesn't flow in and out of his nostrils. And although not cold to the touch, he lacks any of the telltale warmth that comes naturally from perfusion.

But Marth doesn't care. He wraps his arms and legs around the stiff, wood-supported body of his boyfriend, pressing his face against the hard stuffing that forms those strong, broad shoulders he has always loved, and whispers goodnight.

Marth has a secret: when he holds Ike, he feels almost human.

**-end-**

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"_What she might have told him was that taxidermy, like sex, is a very personal subject; the manner in which we impose it on others should be discreet." – John Irving_

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**A/N:** … I feel like I will have no more readers thanks to this. I'm going to go sit in my dark corner and twiddle my thumbs now.


End file.
